Are you like me?
Do you tire easily of the installed fonts on your computer and yearn
to see your words displayed with little feet attached to them or blood
dripping off the serifs or as if they have been carved out of hunks
of pungent Swiss cheese? Well, bang your head against the wall no more,
fellow font lover. You see, the extraspecially good thing about the
Worldwide Web ("www" to those of us in the know) is how much free stuff
there is to be gotten if you know where to look. And free fonts are
no exception. No sirree.

I'll offer a nifty
font for you to download every few days. (I've even done the Mac conversion
for you on the PC TrueType fonts in my collection. I rule.) I'm mostly
fond of artsy display fonts myself, so that's what you're likely to
see here when it comes to downloadables and things that get me all worked
up. But I also recognize the value of a good sans serif typeface and
even a decent serif face every now and then. Script fonts and dingbats
may take me a bit longer to warm up to, but I'm working on it.

I have also compiled
a big fat list of suggestions for you on where to go to get the cool
stuff. Depending on your creative bent, these sites range from very
cool to barely worth raising an eyebrow at. But all of them feature
fonts for download, many of which are free. I will continue to update
reviews and listings. If your site offers free fonts and you aren't
listed, feel free to bend
my ear about it. You'll find that I'm remarkably responsive.

Guess what! I'm
even nicer than you thought. The FFF now sports a handy Font
Archive where you can get your hands on the latest font offerings
even if you weren't diligent enough to stop by once a week. Sure, you
don't deserve it. But that's just the kind of gal I am.

Hey, just for fun:
Check out the Figlet
ASCII Font Converter and see words of your choice displayed in ASCII
symbols. There are like a hundred styles to choose from. Zounds!

So that's what you
get here: free fontage, gobs of information, and a liberal amount of
shameless self-promotion. It's the least I can do. Who am I? you ask.
I'm so flattered your interest was piqued. Everything you could ever
possibly want to know about me -- and then some -- is just a click
away...

Oh, and just to put everyone's minds at ease, I'll alert you to the fact that I am updating this portion of the site RIGHT NOW. Little by little, perhaps. But an update is an update is an update. For those of you who have been kind enough to point out dead sites or give me URLs for new ones or give me URLs for formerly dead ones -- even for you out there who have only emailed to harangue me about my laziness or to express your anger at having been sent to a porn site -- I'm hard at work in the pursuit of your happiness. I need to rework the site entirely at some point so it doesn't take so dang long to load, but I'm trying not to be so ambitious as to extinguish the fires of my industry. Bear with me, will ya?

First
it was Fonts 39, then O.SUB typography -- Miika Saksi sure does
move around. Happily, Miika is also quite handy with the ol' code.
The site is as great as ever. It looks as if there's some work to
be done before the Typography section will be ready to roll. But
we're civilized patient folks, aren't we?

Okay, so the epilogue to all of this is that I can find neither hide nor hair of this once-great font site, but I did find Mika Saksi's self-promoting site at http://www.shove-it-helsinki.com, and she's still awesome as ever. Just not distributing fonts, as far as I can tell. Feel free to keep me apprised if you have more information on this mystery.

Woe
is me -- and all the rest of you who will never get a chance to
visit this site, There were some really good original fonts here.
I am suspicious that the domain has changed, so please alert me
if you have any news.

Patrick Durr and his original designs don't seem to be calling this URL home anymore. I've poked around a bit and found little sign of their new digs. You can get Patrick's designs from a lot of other sites, but I hope he'll be back in action in his own right one of these days.

I've
owed this guy a link for ages, so here it be: Large collection of
freeware truetype fonts collected from the web. Quick-loading. Tastes
great with lemon.

Still a great place to get free fonts. You can also order a personalized handwriting font. But there are pop-up windows galore to be dealt with. It starts to feel like you're playing a game of Whack-a-Mole.

"By
day a clever comic magician, by night...Agent J." Original freeware typefaces to sample and a few families to buy. There's also a little section on where to get software to design your own fonts. So you can stop bugging me about it.

Formerly Alex'den - The flipside of Project. Alex Gollner has augmented his web presence again. This site inlcudes Alex's benevolent font designs. And if you backtrack a bit, you can get to know more about Alex himself.

Five
new fonts each week on this cute French site -- which has sadly disappeared from the face of the Web. I'm deputizing you all as font spies in my service. If you find a reincarnation of this once-wonderful site, let me know.

Original
Creations by Jason Fagone, self-proclaimed "macaque daddy of fonts"
and designer of such winners as Font for the Dumped and Monko Blocky. Currently reading: "work in progress." But I have faith.

This
is the home of a new font archive. The graphics are great. And I once
commended the site for having the good sense to move on up from Geocities
to an independent domain, but I'm now confused by that commendation, as the URL still appears to be a Geocities address. Maybe I lost my mind. Also called Aye En Kae Fonts, apparently.

Original
dingbats from Ace of Space Graphics are nowhere to be found. Ace of Space now has its own web site with a proper domain name and everything, but I see no mention of freeware dingbats. It's a shame.

I
never did manage to get this page to load, through no fault of the
site designer, I'm sure. But in addition to the fact that a nice
collection of free original typefaces resides there, there is one
thing I can certainly say about it: it's new.

Font
of the month page on a graphics design site. I like this page just
fine (particularly because I'm on the link list), and I am thrilled
to announce that Tripod's grubby fingerprints are no longer anywhere
to be found on this site.

Formerly
MC Graphix Font Page. This site offers 10 new fonts to download
each week as well as a Fontswap Board where visitors can exchange
typefaces. Look out, alt.binaries.fonts! You can also link to the
Brain
Stew Fonts & Design site, which features a bunch of original
typeface designs to download.

Brendan
promises to have over 500 fonts displayed in the near future. But
that doesn't account for the fact that some Greek enthusiast called
Chris seems to have taken over the site. Well, that's Geocities
for you -- the eternal bastion of electronic permanence.

Freeware
and shareware fonts (foreign language, dingbats, logo, "smashed")
and a liberal dose of JavaScript can be found at this site. I'm
tired of trying to think of creative ways to say, "Why don't you
go there?" so why don't you just go there?

Chank
is God -- worship him! Plenty of stuff for sale including the bestselling
"Mister Frisky" font (which I own). But I direct your attention
to the weekly free fonts, archived for your convenience. If ever
someone deserved to be rich and famous because of excellence in
typeface design, this is the guy.

Just
one font to download here. You guessed it: it's called Chess Utrecht.
Essentially a picture font of chesspieces on black or white squares.
I can think of no discernible use for this. But perhaps you can.

A
cool collection of fonts. You can download free zipped font collections
designated by genre. Can't get 'em one at a time, unfortunately.
But that's life. And that's what the "Trash Can"/"Recycle Bin" down
there at the bottom of your monitor screen is for.

I'm
hesitant to say a site is slow-loading because it's quite possible
it's just that my router is playing tricks on me, but this site
took ages to load for me. Once up, it proved itself to be a reasonably
useful site for downloading fonts collected from the web.

Steve
Michael Palmer has a mother of a site on his hands here. He's offering
original typefaces (of the predominantly techy variety) to download
and an eyeful of great web design to boot. And it's all free free
free. Make haste!

Click
on Minions of the Claw to get to the font pages, where you will
find a couple of original typefaces. One is DEVO, which comes replete
with dingbats you can't help but love. You'll also find a large
collection of fonts not designed by the Claw for you to download.

Erica
Mercer's site displays her cool typeface designs but, sadly, doesn't
apparently want you to have them. Hrmph. There is a new Font Forum
as well as a number of inspiring design ideas. And as an addendum
to my prior whining, on her birthday, Erica offered a freeware download
of her awesome font Marioki. If it's still there, you're golden.

James
Devlin's page. Freeware and shareware download archive now; original
fonts someday and a promise to update the site weekly. The pages
take some time to load, but James has put together a great-looking
site. See for yourself.

The
Diner is open for business! Visit the "Silverware"page for free
stuff, and be sure to take a gander at the Braineaters Font section.
The graphics on this site rule me. I can't impress this upon you
enough. If you have forty bucks, you can buy a whole mess of awesome
fonts. So do that.

Snazzy
font and clip-art retailer with a free samples which contains the
formerly hard-to-find Suessfont (you can see it in the banner to
my "What Appeals to Me" page -- I get asked for it all the time).

As
font download sites go, this one amazes the hell out of me. The
one thing you can say about the revamped, overhauled, restylized
Fontopolis site: It's dizzyingly new. Kitschy and cool in every
way -- you must visit this site, or you will be doomed to not have
visited it. God bless Peter Langdon.

Formerly,
"No Fronts: Magnus Jepson's Font Page." Freeware and shareware typefaces
collected from elsewhere on the web. By request, I'm alerting you
to the fact that there may be adult-oriented material on this site.

Even
if you feared you'd never be able to listen to another Smashing
Pumpkins song because of the heartwrenching memories of betrayal
and lost loves that are likely to be dredged up, you might find
some fonts here that you like.

Swedish
commercial type foundry with a catalogue of original fonts, some
of which fall into the "would kill to have" category. Unfortunately
for me, they still reside pretty firmly in the "don't have" category,
where they will remain until I stumble onto a giant wad of cash.
But the latest news is that a few free fonts can be found lurking
on this site. Get 'em while they're hot! -- and free.

Daniel
Guldkrans' site. Quite a treasure chest of images to download, and
they're displayed in an informative fashion. To the best of my knowledge,
these are not your standard installable fonts, but merely GIF images
you can copy and grab characters from.

Extremely
hip designer Claes Källarson is back in action! (Hurrah!) And
apparently he's joined forces with the mother of all fontmakers,
Chank. Check out his neato list of shareware and commercial fonts
right now -- that's an order!

Sadly,
this link is dead. But here's what I had to say about when it was
among the living: "Wow! Tons of fonts categorized by file type (Mac
TTF & Type 1, Windows TTF & Type 1) and then by typeface
style. Quite a few original titles. The selection leans in favor
of the noble Mac-user with a particular triumph in the Mac-only
typeface "Eddie Fisher." Sweet justice..."

Free
fonts in the "Pressies" section. This site makes me hearken back
to those sunny days on the shores of the Bahamas...well, it was
Guam, actually, but I'm pretty sure the ocean's salty in the Bahamas,
too.

Kees
Gajentaan's awesome site. There are free original fonts to be found
here, but they are scattered about. Fortunately, whilst seeking
them out, you will be entertained greatly by Kees and his unique
style.

I
don't even know if this page is called "Hydrox." For some reason,
xoom.com did not want to load for me, so I'm just assuming. I know
for a fact that there is a font site at this address. I just don't
know anything else about it. How's that for honesty?

A
cool original Indian horror movie-inspired free font called Macabro
resides here, now accompanied by a host of other super awesome designs.
Mac version only, for the moment. Good thing I've got a G3...

A
new original typeface every week for free. Ray Larabie makes fonts
so awesome there should be a disclaimer about potential amazement-related
bowel tremors, and he gives them all away for free. Ray Larabie
must be on crack. And we, ashamed of our exploitation of his drug-induced
dementia, should send him lots of money as a form of penance. He
deserves it.

Only
one font here, inspired by the typeface on the Lemonheads' album
"It's a Shame about Ray" -- which prompts me to suggest you visit
Hollywood
Highball Magazine online and cruise on over to "Die, Evan Dando,
Die!"

The
site is in Danish, but it is nevertheless an archive of downloadable
freeware fonts. I don't mean to sound ethnocentric. I just don't
speak Danish. So I must revert to the universal language of typeface.

Mark
Heimback-Nielsen will convert Mac fonts for use on a PC for you
FOR FREE. He has also made a font in honor of the late Jeep Swenson
(actor who played Bane in Batman and Robin), which you can download
for free. Worth the trip? You're darn tootin'!

As
is often the case, Neal went and changed the filename on his fonts
page. His site is still there, but the directory listing is unavailable.
If you can hear me, Neal, and you're still into the typeface, give
me a jingle and clue me in to your new digs.

Answer:
"No." Question: "Is there anything more beautiful than a free font?"
Get 'em while they're hot and free. But get a Mac before you visit
this site. Happily for me, I've already got one. The postscript
to this review is that the site is apparently in the process of
massive change and no fonts are to be found for the time being.
According to these folks, design is dead.

Lots
of eye candy here. French language graphic design site with a typeface
section called -- you guessed it -- "Radiateur Fontes." It appears
that the site is still under construction, but there is a free font
button. So wait a while and give it a click.

I
have officially reviewed this site and I'm pleased to anounce that
it officially rules! So far, a collection of 10 font download pages.
Quick to load, easy to read, downright impossible to criticize.

For
$10, J.P. Grant will make you a font of your own handwriting or
a clone of some other font you like. You can also download Windows
and Mac versions of some of his designs, including clones of the
Seaquest DSV font.

Free
and money fonts from Mike Hind, the Stickman. This guy is so damn
cool, he's got a font called Titwillow inspired by Sam the Eagle's
timeless rendition. That one isn't free, but so many other wonderful
ones are.

Cool
font archive with a font of the week and a nice collection of fonts
categorized by genre. The pages don't load with lightning quickness,
and you need a i s oniot view the home image map properly, but they're
worth perusing once they're up.

Poo.
TarmSaft has gone the way of the dinosaur. This is what used to
be true of their site: "Loads of original fonts to download for
free. I have been told that TarmSaft uses a generous portion of
vulgar Swedish verbiage on their site. This does not offend me.
If it offends you, by all means avoid visiting."

Original
fonts for commercial and shareware download. You can download a
free font for filling out a survey. There's also an essay on the
ethics of typeface counterfeiting if you're feeling lecturable.

The
site lives on as Aus Software, but I can't find anything font-related.
Here's what I once said of these guys: "A new original shareware
and freeware graphics site. They've got fonts, filters, and tileable
backgrounds. And apparently they strongly believe in conservation
of punctuation, 'cause you won't find much of it here." Don't you
find my clever condescension endearing?

A
pretty impressive collection of freeware typefaces collected by
our friend SquirtGun and made available for free download in a really
appealing black and white layout. I don't usually involve my thumbs
in these reviews, but Squirt Gun gets one in the up-turned position!

Replete
with Douglas Adams inspiration, Smurf references, and a designer
whose namesake is a Scandinavian god, this site offers massive free
fontage and a side order of soothing visuals. If Utopia were not
a logical impossibility, I'd say I'd found it.

The
Wondermat, aside from being an unbelievably awesome place to hang,
is the exclusive distribution site for some of dincTYPE's finest
free offerings. Free things are found under "Times Square," but
you are hereby commanded to visit the rest of the site as well.
You won't be sorry -- unless you defy me!

Yet
another member of Chank's ass-kicking Design Posse. I'm jealous-er
than I can say. But more importantly, a monthly free font is available
from this site, and it's generally well worth the download time
(particularly if you have a swanky cablemodem like me).

Sadly,
Zeitgeist appears to have packed it in. Keep watching the skies.
Reincarnation is a common occurrence in the typeface world. "This
used to be "Petula's LIttle World." But, dang! Somebody got their
hands on some Java textbooks since the last time I stopped by. This
site is very polished and creative. Find the fonts under 'Abecedarian
-- When alphabet is learnt.' One original font and a number of freeware/shareware
titles to download."

The
home page almost sent me into a grand mal seizure while it was loading.
But there's a pack of PC versions of common Mac fonts to download.
That's something.

Because these are
primarily "not-so-free", I was what one might call "not-so-diligent"
in my research and this list is by no means exhaustive. Primarily, it
consists of sites I came across while looking for free fonts and sadly
discovered were in the ugly business of profiteering.

Chess
and other game diagram fonts, including dominoes, backgammon, mah
jong, othello, and checkers. Certainly a specialized need, but if
you have such a need, you'll be relieved that this place exists.
$29 per font family.

BOSSFONTS
is a Font Manager from Arts & Letters. This site promotes BOSSFONTS
and teases you with a slide show of the 2,000 or so fonts you get
with BOSSFONTS when you order. To aggravate the situation, two free
fonts are offered in exchange for your email address, but it's just
one oriental-looking font and one Hebrew-looking font. Hrmph.

Swing
by the Font Arsenal and see all the latest weaponry. Cool sounds,
not-so-annoying use of frames - an all-out pleasure. Twenty-five
large bucks a pop for these daddies, but they are worth every penny.

This
site is a class act. Despite the glaring lack of free fonts, there
are some really amazing designs here which can be purchased at reasonable
prices, which is almost as good as getting them for free (hopeful
shrug).

Ooh!
-- golly, I can't wait for this site to come out from behind the
obscuring veil of renovation. Although under construction when last
I visited, the sample images displayed were enough to set me a-covetin'!

I
hope this site is just under construction. The screen capture cleverly
displays a Macintosh desktop in the throes of some horrific event
involving Madonna, Sharon Stone, and Microsoft Exchange. Sinister!

If you're a Mac
user (like me), you may want to consider downloading a copy of TTConverter
1.5 to convert PC TrueType fonts to Mac TrueType. It's not perfect,
but it keeps smug PC users from being able to say "neener neener" to
you on quite so many occasions. Click
to download TTConverter 1.5 in Mac Binhex format You may also need
the Stuffit
Expander program to complete the downloads. For the record, though,
Macromedia's Fontographer is really the only way to go when it comes
to font conversion.

Your
opinion matters!

...Well, it matters
to me anyway. I can't speak for Congress or your mother or the folks
who process our drinking water or the executives at the dubba-dubba-WB.
But speaking solely for myself, your opinion makes my world go 'round.
Don't be stingy: Lay
it on me.

I know this banner
link appears at the top of the page. I just thought you might have
forgotten.
In any case, you should cruise the rest of my site. I'm really cool.

And if you wish
to link to this page -- and I KNOW you do -- here's a graphic you
can use so the link will look extra snazzy.

PSSSST!
-- here's my secret. . .

I
am always being poked and prodded about what software I use
to create the type graphics you see here and in the FFF archive.
Simultaneously, I'm getting worse and worse about responding
to my email promptly. So to prevent you from thinking I don't
care about you, here's the scoop: I work on a Mac. I use a lot
of software packages, but principally Adobe Photoshop (versions
3 through 5). Many of the coloring techniques I use are just
things I've made up. But I also use some commercial filters
from time to time. The simplest and best of these are Flaming
Pear's Blade and/or BladePro and Alien Skin's Eye Candy. Both
of these can be obtained online in demo or shareware form. And
if you end up wanting to own them, that's not a pipe dream as
long as you're not a complete pauper. Even then, I'm sure selling
a pint of your blood would be enough to purchase Blade. It's
really cheap. Both Blade and Eye Candy can be used with Photoshop
or PaintShop Pro (also reasonably priced shareware), so if you're
PC-bound, there is hope. I can also wholeheartedly recommend
Macromedia's Fireworks, which is my new favorite toy. It's very
easy to use, and if all you want to do is create simple drop
shadows or beveled text, it's literally a button click. So now
you know my secrets. I hope you will continue to love and admire
me and possibly even pretend I'm still fascinating.

I only distribute
fonts which I have been led to believe are freeware or shareware for
one reason or another. If it so happens that I am mistaken and am actually
distributing a commercial font or violating someone's copyright, let
me know and I will readily remove said offending typefaces. But be nice,
okay? I'm a delicate flower.